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Counterpoint: I’m old and don’t miss any of that. Fewer devices is very, very nice. And fewer physical pieces of media is even nicer for the environment.
I actually don’t miss having to be kind and rewind, or spending 15 minutes with a pencil spooling my music back into a listenable format after being a bit careless with my tapes, only to have Glenn Frey sound like he’s eating marbles next time.
Less waste and less hassle. Nostalgia is overrated.
It's more nuanced. We like having all that stuff on one device. It's the other stuff the device does that annoys us.
That’s not an issue with the medium, though.
And I really appreciate being able to watch hours of content with no adverts now. Back in the day, nearly everything had unskippable ads. There was no adblock; you had to watch everything on someone else’s schedule, and the only way to not watch ads was to pee or make a sandwich.
I haven’t seen an ad in years and, my god, it’s awesome.
I guess i just miss having a walkman mode, where all it did was play music. If I could turn on a walkman mode on my phone, I sometimes would definitely do that.
Turn on do-not-disturb and you don't get notifications or calls. It's not a true walkman mode but it turns off some distractions.
A good suggestion. The harder problem is actually me. Oh, imma skip this song I don’t like it. Maybe they have a new album out, I’ll just quickly check. Hmm, what’s the weather tomorrow. Etc.
Hmm, not sure about that. Waiting for my TV to boot or update or connecting to Wi-Fi or my m music streaming app to 'think' for two minutes until it works at all is tedious. Don't get me wrong - it's still net positive. But I would instantly choose any option that offers less features if it would give me back this cosy feeling, that I'm the customer and not the product. Don't want to go into details here but it feels at certain edges that some of these integrated functionalities have simply not been tested for an actual user, but simply to offer ... more.
Writing that, it also could just be age bias. :-p
I think the problem we're facing now is that we've basically hit on as good as its going to get for a while.
Previously things had to improve upon what came before, but with phones being as versatile and all-encompassing as they are, there isnt really much room for improvement until the next big leap, whatever that will look like. Companies still want to make more money though, and they will do whatever it takes to get it.
We're no longer customers as we used to be, we're targets. We're being analysed at ridiculous levels of scrutiny so they can turn the dials in just the right way to trick us into parting with just a little more money.
I mean, you know, alwayshasbeen.jpg and whatever, but the feeling is gone.
I only use streaming services to discover new music. General listening to music I like, is through local files. Those are always plug and play. No need to wait. Just listen to whatever you want.
Tv shows or movies are also downloaded and streamed from Jellyfin, a local media server on my pc. Local just works. And I'm the owner of my files.
Dump Spotify and embrace yt-dlp
How far back are we talking? Because I remember in the '90s using the VHS recorder to record shows to fast forward through the ads later
Yeah, but you had to sit there for like a minute to do that, and you had to be on alert for that, not enjoying it but waiting for the ad break. Nowadays, the whole thing just plays uninterrupted.
Counter counter point. Your brain hasn’t been as fried by technology as the youth (I’m Gen Z). Streaming has trained our brains to never listen to full albums. Having to rewind is kinda the point. You’re way more likely to listen to an album from start to finish. Phones are overrated.
Me too old AF and don't miss walkman or discman or digital cameras or iPod or VHS or any of that old technology.
I understand more as you move away from technology. Like I can get why others feel an attachment to vinyl record players or film photography. Anybody can understand that stuff, while a smart phone seems more like magic.
Because cassette tapes were awful, fast declining quality, tiny picture + tiny booklet if you're lucky. Discman was awful while cycling to school, potholes causing interruptions... The mp3-player 256MB was a really cool innovation! Enjoyed that supermuch. Went through batteries FAST tho. But vinyl LPs... Is just different. It was never meant for on the road scenario and the size of the 12" sleeve just makes for a really cool collection of pictures alongside the cool collection of music. I still enjoy playing vinyl while I find it is the ultimate album experience. You get nice sleeve/context, sort of forced to listen album a to z and always dead silence in the end instead of some algorithm or autoplay making everything a never ending stream of best case 'related' stuff but more common the next sponsored crap being pushed on you...
I actually miss the iPod and Zune. I like having my music on another device.
You miss the emotions the walkman brought, especially that nowadays you don't even own data that's on this small all-in-one device, let alone the music you listen to...
So of course you don't get as much joy out of it when it basically is a door to the hell where souls go to agonize wishing they'd die already
sigh but yeah, I get your point
you don’t even own data that’s on this small all-in-one device
If I don't own it, why does everyone keep insisting I stole it?
If buying is not owning then copying is not stealing.
I miss physical buttons for when I'm listening to music.
Having to unlock my phone to skip a track or advance a podcast is really annoying.
I used to be able to click a button in my pocket. I could even slide a bit to skip forward and back 30 seconds.
I also like to listen to music in bed in the dark. The bright screen, the messing around with the unlock, really breaks the flow.
Yes I have earphones that are touch sensitive, but poking it messes with any good isolated fit I've achieved, the touch doesn't always register and after a while, one ear starts to hurt. Especially when you need to tap three times to restart a track.
I've now got this stupid setup with a BT dongle in a usb a-c converter; which plugs into my phone and controls a tiny physical keyboard.
There are lots of mp3 players, but they don't support streaming platforms. The ones that do, also went mainly touch screen only and cost a fortune. There is one physical Spotify player with buttons but it's just a dumb cube with very basic functionality.
You had me in the first half, but streaming on Spotify can go right to Dell.
Most decent headphones still seem to have physical buttons. The big ones. With earbuds you're kinda out of luck
I don't use streaming, but I have high hopes for Snowsky. The Echo Mini is very close to what I want, and the slated release for the Echo (normal?) is soon.
I'm very grateful to 2010 me who decided to rip my family's CD albums into a hard drive, which has stayed with me through multiple countries, pcs, and listening devices. Built on with Bandcamp and Soulseek.
The problem is that this one device we adopted kept getting worse at what it was supposed to do and got repurposed as a real time ad delivery and social engineering machine instead.
People talk like the dedicated portable music player just doesn't exist anymore, but you can buy devices like that if you really wanted.
i only miss the device controls. the buttons and clickwheels were so awsome.
I remember getting my Nokia N95 nearly twenty years ago, and it was fucking awesome being able to reveal the four media control buttons, and blindly control music in my headphones from my pocket while walking to work or on the bus or train.
As other commenters have said - I look at my old Ixus camera or LG Soul MP3 player or Nokia 3330 with fond nostalgia memories... but thank fuck I'm not lugging all that about now.
I miss iPod. It’s easy to use. Doesn’t spam ads in my face. And the music is my own, I don’t need to pray it doesn’t disappear due to licensing deals.
CDs suck as a portable format but is nice since it’s like MP3s but not proprietary.
Cassettes suck, and I don’t miss them.
Records are a fun novelty. They are the worse format, but the art and the experience is fun especially since I need to be careful what albums I buy. I need to like the whole thing and not just a song or two.
Gen z here. I don’t feel like I’ve earned the right to talk about cassettes as a youngster, but a Type II cassette on a well maintained dual capstan deck and a well biased recording sound pretty good. Add a touch of Dolby type b noise cancellation and it’s even better.
Specifically, I’m using a Yamaha k-1020 deck ($350 refurbished), and Maxwell XL-II 90 tapes ($5-10). I’m running a proper audio interface into the cassette deck. Since I’m using my phone, I have the luxury of rapidly skipping around an album on my phone while I’m checking levels for an entire album. And I’m using a 3 head deck, so I can hear exactly what’s being recorded in realtime.
You might read that and be like “that’s too much work”, but that’s kinda the point imo. Why do people still do film photography when it’s more work than digital? (I also shoot film lol)
Admittedly, things fall apart a little when you move to portable cassette players. Modern players are kinda crap. I haven’t gotten my hands on any vintage walkmans yet.
I grew up with cassettes. Type II was a rarity and not what you’d buy from the store. Those were type I tapes.
Plus the whole format was a compromise. CDs almost whipped them out, but when digital came both were gone in a flash.
I think the only benefit of cassette today is making mix tapes, but on a retail and purchasable music standpoint. They weren’t good.
i hear this a lot but it’s not like those things do not exist anymore? they are even still being produced.
The biggest problem we created is that you used to own things. Like music. Now you just lease them. Or stream them. And don’t forget the 65 minutes of ads for every 23 minutes of music. Or maybe that 33 minute ad in front of that 87 second long YouTube video. The device isn’t the issue, or the lack of devices. It’s the bullshit we have to deal with now that everything is a subscription or ad.
Just the other day I was noticing how you don’t see vhs or cassette tape ribbon just littering the ground anymore. It’s better this way
now you don't even see the lithium batteries leaching into the water supply!
Yup, thank God each device just has one lithium battery, instead of the HUNDREDS UPON HUNDREDS of alkaline batteries you'd go through in the life of a device in the past. You got about 6-8 hours of gameplay in a GameBoy from 2 AA batteries. Kids played these every single day. You have any idea how many we went through?
Or stereos/walkman of the time using even more? Stereos used 4-12 C/D batteries and lasted maybe 2 hours.
You have no idea how incredibly better you have it with lithium batteries and the waste they create. We used to buy alkaline batteries by the 24/48 pack as a regular grocery item.
I've used recchargeables for all my life. some of the first ones still work. No idea where they actually end up but I always brought them to the battery section at the recycle depot when they finally died.
Not missing discmen, though. Those sucked.
But yeah, seriously. Walkmen were extremely primitive and all kinds of inconvenient compared to later digital devices, but that also meant that they didn't contain ads, spyware or feeds full of propaganda. And they were fairly rugged (in stark contrast to the various mp3 players I had, which didn't even have touchscreens), didn't have glued-in batteries in proprietary formats (again in contrast to mp3 players), and definitely didn't just become unable to perform their functions because of software stuff.
Not missing discmen, though. Those sucked.
30 seconds anti-skip worked great until one moved for more than 30 seconds at a time-me-me-me-me-me-me-ERR
I'm glad I only have one device now. Fuck having 12 things.
I really do though. I would splice a guitar cable into one and use it as a portable guitar Amp so I could practice wherever
I for one like all of it being in one versatile device. My issue with smartphones isn't technology, but the corpos that profit from you even after you've bought the phone.
Can I get it all in one device without requiring an internet connection for functionality?
I still maintain the 4th gen iPod Nano was slick as fuck.
Nonono, smart phones and car manufacturers have proven that people love poking at tactileless glass for everything! Who needs to feel something and have physical feedback, or have a physical experience? You're playing music, not playing music!
Personally I don't think the feature consolidation was the problem. It IS still nice to have my music library, a camera, and a fairly capable computer all able to fit in my pocket...
The problem is we consolidated around specific device makers, letting them get too big and too comfortable - we've gone from being customers to being money chattle.
